“Mac,” she whispered, and tried to stop the tears and the uncontrollable shaking of her body. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders, and scrambled to the other side of the bed. Even as he held his hand in the air, the universal sign of surrender, a part of her wanted to reach for him, to let him hold her the way he had when she’d sneak into his dorm room at night.
Her head spun in confusion as she pressed her fingertips to her temples. She couldn’t do this again, couldn’t grieve for him all over again. Not on top of everything else.
“Delaney, sweetheart. You’re safe.” Those eyes of his that always reminded her of the dark blue ocean at sunset reassured her she was. She’d dreamt of them. Missed them.
God, the anger she felt toward him now was only a fraction of the love she’d felt for him all that time ago. Until he’d killed her brother when they were both twenty years old.
Delaney jolted and swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into her mouth, and failing. “Where am I?” she gasped as she attempted to hide her confusion. She had a thousand questions right now, but getting answers was what all her years as an investigative reporter had trained her to do best.
“Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. What happened to you? Where did they bring you in from?”
Germany? “Water,” she gasped.
“On it,” Mac said, jumping to his feet. Delaney took one deep breath after the other to regain control.
What was he doing here? How had he even known where she was? And if he’d found out she was here, wouldn’t her mother also … She glanced around the room, though she knew better. Her mother was no doubt still at home, self-medicating with a large bottle of Southern Comfort.
With a grunt of effort that caused a sweat to break out on her forehead, Delaney attempted to push herself up into a seated position. Her ribs screamed in agony, and her wrist buckled beneath her.
“Wait, Delaney. What are you trying to do?” Mac placed a glass of water with a straw on the table next to her hospital bed as a doctor and nurse joined them.
“Here,” Mac said, reaching for her gently. He took her weight and slid her up the bed, then held her with one arm while he adjusted the pillows behind her head. His arm felt warm, safe. And much larger than she remembered.
When he lowered her back onto the pillows, she took in the face whose contours she’d once known better than her own. She reached out her hand and trailed her fingertips along the angular jaw that always used to be clean-shaven, although now it was covered in a dark scruff that gave him a certain appeal. The freckles across the bridge of his nose that a buried piece of her was relieved to see he’d never grown out of, even though they reminded her of summers spent surfing and hanging out with him on the beaches of Encinitas. Hair the color of dark chestnut, as thick as ever. It stood up in all directions, which should have looked foolish but instead made him more handsome … and more of a man … than she could deal with.
But it was his eyes that got her. They always had. The ones that had always seen her as they’d grown up together—he as her brother’s loyal best friend, she as the younger sister who went from being an annoyance he’d had to deal with to … well, back then he would have said to the woman he was going to marry. Those were the sweet words he’d often whispered to her after they’d made love in the back of his truck.
When he leaned into her hand, she snatched it away quickly. “Meds,” she said hoarsely by way of explanation. Perhaps more to herself than to him. His sigh told her he’d missed their connection just as much as she had. But it was pointless getting nostalgic.
Mac offered her a sip of water, and she took it, the ice-cold fluid soothing her parched throat.
She looked away, unable to bear the pain that welled up inside her. She’d loved him with every piece of who she was, but she’d been sure that she couldn’t stay with him without being reminded of losing Brock. And yet, no matter how far she got from Mac, the agony of Brock’s loss had never left her.
The pain of being beaten and thrown onto the dirt floor while being held hostage was second only to the breakdown of her family. The loss of her brother had been horrifying enough, but the death of her father—a heart attack not three months later brought on by stress—had caused what was left of her family to implode. Mac had taken two people she loved from her.
“Better?” Mac handed her the glass.
Her hands shook as she took it from him, the adrenaline pounding through her veins. Against her better judgment, she turned to look up at him. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Not like this.”
There was a scrape of metal as Mac lifted a chair and placed it next to the bed. “Yeah, well, for all the ways I thought I’d see you again, I never quite imagined this, Buttons. There’ll be time for chitchat and shit later. But for now, I want to know how the hell you ended up here, and like this.”
* * *
For the first time in more than forty-eight hours the tight band that had locked itself around Mac’s chest loosened.
His Delaney.
He shouldn’t think it, shouldn’t let himself believe that she was his even for a single minute, but he couldn’t help himself. When she’d touched him, he’d felt it. Even better, had seen it. The look that had always been there when she’d trailed her eyes over his face, like he was everything she wanted. Once upon a time it had made him feel a million feet tall. And those lips he’d kissed a hundred thousand times, and had dreamt of kissing a hundred thousand times more after they’d split. Shit, he was a mess that she was so close and wouldn’t let him so much as hold her hand, to reassure her she was going to be okay.
But there was finally a pinkness to her cheeks, even if it was offset by a yellowed bruise around her eye. That some asshole had brought his fist to her face was almost enough to have him pulling all Eagle operatives onto the first jet available to a place to which he’d vowed never to return.
He’d waited patiently as nurses, followed by two doctors, hurried into the room. The nurse politely asked him to give Delaney some privacy, but he bluntly refused. Until he understood what exactly had happened to her, until he was certain she was safe, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight for a millisecond.
Plus, he’d missed her. And he’d waited two grueling days on a plastic chair for her to open her eyes.
As a concession, he stepped out of the medical team’s way and watched as they went through their checkup on her progress.
She was tolerating having him around—at least for now. It was hard to believe it had been fourteen years since she’d slapped him in front of Brock’s coffin. Not that he could blame her. And so, while everyone around them mourned Brock, he’d mourned the loss of both his friend and Delaney. He’d lost a future he’d wanted more than any of his swimming scholarships. One he’d cared about more than the military career he’d ultimately undertaken to fulfill Brock’s dreams. One he still mourned.
Mac looked over to where Delaney lay in bed. Occasionally, she would nervously nibble on her bottom lip, something she’d always done when she was uncertain or unsure. The first night she’d kissed him, when she’d stepped up onto her toes and surprised him in the hallway of her parents’ home and he’d told her that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t—Guys don’t kiss their best friend’s sister, he’d said—she’d bitten down on her lip just like that. He’d kissed her back, then, just to stop her from doing it again. Or so he’d told himself at the time.
Her chocolate brown hair was still long, but dirty, and he knew that it would bother her once she processed everything else that was going on. Those eyes in which he’d once seen his future reflected back at him, one that involved late-night surfs and kids and travel and forever, darted from left to right as she took in the people talking around her. Occasionally, she’d look toward him, seeking him out for a fleeting moment, but then her shoulders would rise and fall as if sighing, and she’d look away.
Banking the exhaustion he felt, and affronted by how long the medical team was keeping him a
t arm’s length, he stepped back to the foot of the bed so he was squarely in her line of sight. He needed her to know he was there for her, even if she needed time to get used to the idea. She’d repeatedly asked for him, after all. Even if she’d been too out of it to realize what she was doing. At some point, he’d need to figure out the logistics of getting them out of the hospital and back on American soil as quickly as he could. He hoped to convince her to let him help her once they were home, but even if she wouldn’t, he wouldn’t be far away. At least for now, while she recovered. He’d worry about needing to get back to work at Eagle Securities later.
“I’m advising we keep you here for at least a few more days before you even consider moving,” the doctor said. “But we can review again in the morning.”
Delaney blanched. “It’s important that I get back to work.”
There were logistics to consider. Delaney was going to need clothes, travel papers, and probably some heavy-duty pain medication prescriptions to get her home.
“Perhaps Mr. MacCarrick can help get you set up to work here.” The doctor looked in his direction, but Mac made no acknowledgment. Mac had no clue what kind of work was so urgent, but he was going to make sure Delaney’s health was front and center first.
As the room began to empty, he moved his chair closer to the edge of the bed. “You doing okay, Delaney?” He reached for her hand, taking in her scabbed and bruised knuckles, the short unpainted nails, but she pulled it out of his reach and placed it on her lap.
“They wouldn’t answer my questions,” she said, her voice as rough around the edges as if she smoked twenty a day—though he knew for a fact she hated cigarettes. Plus, there was something to her tone—helplessness tinged with frustration. “I wanted to know what happened to my interpreter, Farzam. He traveled from Tajikistan with me.” She looked straight at him, her bloodshot eyes wide. “They might tell you if you asked.”
Of course they wouldn’t tell her. They probably wouldn’t tell him. Everything would be need-to-know only. But he’d play along and try to find out what was going on if it helped her stay positive that she was doing something. And he’d ignore the look in her eye, the one that told him she hated having to ask him, to rely on him for anything, even though it cut through him. “Where were you?” he asked. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
A look of doubt crossed her features, like she didn’t believe he’d do everything he could to help. Which hurt. Or maybe it was because she didn’t trust him with the information, which hurt twice as bad.
“Kunduz.”
A Taliban stronghold. Holy shit.
Taliban and Afghan forces were constantly battling for control of that city, a critical transport hub with a porous border into Tajikistan used for smuggling opium and heroin to Europe through Central Asia. It was always going to be one of the first places under attack—a situation he’d experienced firsthand.
Train, advise, and assist—that was all he and Cabe and the rest of his brothers had been supposed to do when they’d been out there. But there had been too much heavy resistance, and the Afghan Special Forces had been surrounded by insurgents. Damn, it was the closest he’d ever come to panic on a battlefield, but of course they’d had to engage. They’d have been dead within the hour if they hadn’t. By the time backup air strikes had eventually come, two good men were dead.
He tried to push the memories away as he sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Want to tell me what you were doing there?”
Delaney reached to push her hair off her face, but winced and dropped her arm. It hurt him that she was in so much pain. He’d do just about anything to switch places and bear it for her.
Without thinking, he leaned forward and tucked her hair behind her ear. It was still as soft as silk and he wished he could wrap it around his hand as he kissed her.
“Where are my things?” she asked, looking around the room. “Did anything make it here with me?”
He gestured to a chair with the folded pile of clothes and small purse that the nurse had shown him when he’d first arrived. For now, he’d ignore the fact that Delaney had totally avoided answering his question. It could wait a few minutes more. “That’s all they brought in with you.”
“Damn.” She coughed and took a sip of water. “Don’t suppose there’s anything in the purse?”
He shook his head. Whatever she’d once carried in it had been taken—he’d gone through it and wasn’t going to apologize to her for doing so. Silently, he’d prayed that she wasn’t stupid enough to have been carrying anything with too many personal details. “You’re going to need travel papers, emergency ones, but those can be arranged.”
Delaney shook her head. “What’s the date?”
“What’s the last date you remember?” Mac asked.
“Sneaky. Answering a question with a question.” She picked at a thread on the utilitarian bedding. “The journalist in me hates that.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he watched her slim fingers twirl a loose thread of cotton around. “Well, the SEAL in me hates that you were in the crosshairs of a violent insurgency and won’t tell me why that happened, so…” He let the sentence hang between them.
She looked toward him and narrowed her eyes. For a second he thought she was going to smile, could have sworn he saw a ghost of one whisper across her lips.
“I arrived in the village on Monday. What was that? Like the twenty-fourth, maybe twenty-fifth. Of February.” Delaney wrinkled her forehead and pressed a hand to her temple. He could tell the effort hurt. “We walked into the hills the next day, and that’s when … well, when I was taken … maybe a couple of days in house … hut … whatever. So, I guess it’s Friday or Saturday.”
It worried him that she was a few days off, even though it was to be expected. “It’s Monday. You lost a bit of time. The doc said the people who took you gave you something that knocked you out.”
It was warm in the room, but Delaney pulled the blanket up under her chin as she yawned. “That explains why I couldn’t open my eyes properly,” she said, snuggling into the pillows.
He was losing her to sleep, and Lord knew she needed it. But there was one thing he needed to know before he let her slip into it. The chair scraped the floor as he stood and went to perch on the edge of the bed. He reached out without thinking and moved another stray piece of hair from her forehead. Delaney pulled away from him, and he remembered that she wasn’t his anymore. Hell, he didn’t even know if she was somebody else’s.
“Delaney … how badly did they hurt you? Did they…?” Shit. He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. No matter what had happened to her, he’d be by her side, but he needed to know what he was up against.
“They beat me, that was all,” she mumbled, her eyes closed as she drifted toward sleep. Her hand slipped into his, and warmth trickled through him. He knew he shouldn’t read anything into the actions of an exhausted woman, but it gave him hope. She’d be embarrassed in the morning if he told her what she’d done. But at some subconscious level, she needed him.
“I felt so alone, Mac.”
Alone.
As her body relaxed into sleep—the deep, heavy sleep that Delaney had always loved, sleep so restful she would struggle to get out of bed in the morning—he traced his fingers along her heart-shaped face, along her jaw while holding her hand tightly.
“I’m here, Delaney,” he whispered before placing a chaste kiss on her temple. “You’re not alone anymore.”
CHAPTER TWO
There were too many other things to worry about without thinking about Mac and his questions. She needed to get well, get a flight, and get home. She needed to pick the story up where she had left off. Because it was a good one. And because she’d always felt a responsibility, in Brock’s absence, to do something good for her country in his honor. She needed to fly back to Afghanistan to pick up her leads before they went cold. Plus, she couldn’t let what happened to her fester mentally. A sc
ared investigative journalist was a dead investigative journalist—or worse, an out-of-work one—something most people would never understand.
Mac had been torn. He hadn’t wanted to leave her to go shopping, no matter how many times she’d told him she’d be fine, but she needed things to travel home. So, he’d made a list and told her an hour ago that he was going to get them.
She’d been torn too. She didn’t want him buying her underwear, yet the thought of him running his fingers over the fabric as he picked something out for her made her shiver as she recalled the one time he’d snuck into the Victoria’s Secret dressing room with her. He was bound to come back with little shorts and a lace bra, something he’d liked her seeing her in, instead of the practical cotton she craved against her skin. The thought shouldn’t make her want to cry but it did.
She’d gone through enough, and didn’t have the energy to deal with Mac too.
Tears pooled in the corner of her eyes and she let them fall in a moment of weakness. She wiped them on the back of her hand.
“Here. Use this.” A tissue appeared in her peripheral vision.
How had he gotten everything done so quickly? It was stupid, but she’d been looking forward to a little time alone and now he’d caught her at her weakest moment.
None of this was his business—where she’d been, what she’d been doing, how she’d get home. None of it was his problem, or his thing to fix. Nothing about her had been his since the day he’d gotten Brock to jump off that goddamn cliff. Since he’d driven Brock north, in his car, and encouraged him. Her brother hated heights, had since he was a child and their parents had taken them to the top of the Empire State Building. She knew that, her parents knew that, and Mac had known it. It had crushed her when Becca, an old school friend, had told her she’d seen Mac and Brock in heated discussion on the walk up to the cliff top. And it had killed her to read the inquest testimonies of witnesses who said it appeared Brock hadn’t really wanted to jump.
Every time she heard Mac’s voice now, she also could hear it then—goading Brock, threatening to push him if he didn’t jump, laughing as he ran past Brock to jump off first. In her mind, she could still see Brock following him, slipping on the edge of the cliff before he could launch himself out toward the water, and hitting the rocks below.
Final Siege Page 2
